


Cat Scratch Fever

by anna_chronistic



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 19th Century Medicine, Canon Era, Cats, Gen, Pre-Barricade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-29 02:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17194898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_chronistic/pseuds/anna_chronistic
Summary: In which Joly gets bitten by a cat and Musichetta is not impressed.





	Cat Scratch Fever

**September 5, 1830**

It was a typical summer's night for Joly, Bossuet, and their shared mistress Musichetta. It had been a particularly hot night, so either Bossuet or Musichetta had left the window open. Joly, being a light sleeper, took notice of this quickly and got up to close the window. He did not want the miasmas of the city in this hot weather to drift into their flat.

As he looked out the window, he spotted a small animal in the distance on the Parisian streets. This was their household pet that had most likely escaped through the window, a tabby kitten named Jojo. The name Jojo was, in fact, Lesgles' first nickname for Joly before the name Jolllly came about. However, Joly secretly hated that name, but did not have the heart to tell him that directly. So he decided to call the kitten Jojo instead so that Lesgles would never call him Jojo again, a rather clever way to get rid of his unwanted nickname.

Once he saw Jojo alone outside at night, he rushed to bring him back to safety. Joly worried about larger animals attacking or harming the small kitten. He immediately ran out the door as fast as he could, completely ignoring the pain in his knee, to get where the cat was; he didn't even think to put shoes on. If anyone would go out of their way to rescue a cat, it would definitely be Joly.

"Come here, Jojo!" Joly said in a cutesy, high-pitched voice. He then crouched down and whistled to get the kitten's attention. Joly always thought that baby-talk was more effective for pets.

"You have to come inside. We do not want a wolf or a big dog to eat you, or a hawk to carry you away in its talons."

But the curious kitten did not want to go home; he just wanted to explore. As Joly came after him, Jojo retreated into a small bush. So much for kittens and their hiding places. Joly then rustled the bush lightly to coax the kitten out. When Jojo left the bush, Joly attempted to pick him up quickly, but had startled the kitten and was promptly bitten on the hand.

"Ah!" Joly winced. "Do you not like me anymore, Jojo?"

The kitten squirmed in his arms, but Joly knew that if he let go, Jojo would escape again. Joly readjusted his position and tried to make sure the cat was comfortable, cradling him like a baby as he walked back to his flat. Joly then went to the mirror to assess the damage. He had been bitten on his left hand between the wrist and fingers, and he saw that it was bleeding.

"Merde," Joly swore. Surely an open wound during hot weather would be a recipe for disaster. He had read in his medical textbooks about people getting amputations after so much as mildly injuring themselves with a cut. Joly frantically shuffled through his medicine cabinet to find something to clean it.

That had awoken Bossuet, who left his room to check on Joly.

"What are you up to at this hour, Joly?" Bossuet said with some tiredness in his voice.

"I must find something to clean this bite on my hand," Joly said. "Jojo escaped the house and I tried to carry him back. Now he bit me and it won't stop bleeding."

"It's okay. You're okay," he consoled. "I am obligated to help you find something, because I was the one who opened the window."

Bossuet scanned a candle around the dark medicine cabinet, surveying it for potential items that might help. Joly stopped him when he spotted a bottle of iodine.

"I think this will help," Joly said. "Bernard Courtois used iodine to treat wounds as a battlefield nurse."

Joly put iodine on the wound and rinsed it off with absinthe. But the cat bite still looked bad afterwards.

"I think I should see a doctor," said Joly.

"You really believe your injury to be that extensive?" Bossuet asked.

"It doesn't have to be that extensive in order to be dangerous," Joly said. "Even minor cuts have the possibility of turning gangrenous and resulting in an amputation."

"You exaggerate," said Bossuet. "I will go to the hospital with you just to confirm that your hand will be perfectly alright."

~~

It was about 10 o'clock at night, so there were no omnibuses around. Fortunately, however, the hospital was less than a kilometer away. About one block in, Bossuet noticed that Joly's staggered gait was more apparent than usual, which led him to believe that his knee was in pain as well.

"Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you?" he asked.

"I can walk. But I still want you to carry me, okay?" said Joly.

Bossuet carried Joly piggyback style down the road towards the hospital, and on the way, they inevitably cracked some jokes.

"I suppose the only good thing that would happen if I do get my hand amputated is that it would be hard to arrest me. I'd just keep slipping out of the handcuffs and driving the constables crazy," Joly joked.

"Indeed, but you might still be upset that your hand is gone, so you might cry into a _hand_ -kerchief," Bossuet added.

~~

The doctor examined the laceration on Joly's hand, which was not bleeding as badly as it was initially.

"Your wound is not that severe," said the doctor. "But I would advise you to prevent it from getting exposed to the miasmas of the summer air, especially in this humidity."

"That's exactly what I was concerned about," said Joly. "Fortunately, I am not that vascular, so it would be relatively easy to sew the open wound shut."

"May I ask you how you acquired this injury?"

"My kitten bit me," he said. The doctor raised his eyebrows, trying to prevent himself from smirking at Joly's comment.

"Well we do not typically sew up animal bites, as we do not want to trap their humours in your cut and have them mixing with yours," the doctor explained. "Once the skin is punctured, animal bites could potentially carry the risk of hydrophobia, although this disease is relatively rare."

Joly's eyes widened at that. That was something that he hadn't even considered.

"Has your cat been bitten by an animal before? What is its behavior like?" the doctor asked Joly.

"My cat is eight weeks old and has never been bitten. He's a typical cat; nocturnal, playful. There is no strange or aggressive behavior that I know of."

"The I would not worry about hydrophobia, monsieur. It would be best to keep this wound loosely covered until it heals."

With that, the doctor put a loosely-wrapped gauze around Joly's hand.

That trip to the hospital was not nearly as eventful as Joly thought it would be.

~~

"Where have you two been?" was what Musichetta said when Bossuet and Joly arrived back at their flat. Jojo had also greeted Joly, standing on his hind legs and putting his paw on Joly's leg, meowing for attention.

"We were at the hospital," Bossuet said.

"Because this little cat escaped and bit my hand when I tried to bring him back in the house," Joly said, petting Jojo and showing Musichetta his gauzed hand.

"You must be joking," said Musichetta. "You got bitten by a cat, not shot. Jojo is only eight weeks old!"

"Indeed. We essentially went there to confirm Bossuet's hypothesis that my hand was alright. But the doctor said it was a good decision on my part to go to the hospital."

"Oh, you probably felt so special," Musichetta quipped. "I know how much you like hospitals. You'd think ' _oh my God, people are taking care of me, I'm sick!_ '. It's like Munchausen's by Joly."

"My goal is not to make people feel sorry for me," Joly said. "Although that does happen fairly often, whether I want it to or not. I'm just that cute."

"Oh my dear Jolllly, you are very witty and cute, but you can be pusillanimous at times," said Musichetta.

"I think not. I was the one who chased Jojo down and rescued him from the malicious wolves of the nighttime," he said, rather poetically. "Cats are much faster than they look!"

"Whatever you say," Musichetta said, smirking.

"You're saying that someone who got carried to the hospital at 10 p.m. after getting bitten by a baby cat is a pansy?" Joly said, blushing and now realizing how unattractive to women that made him look. Both Bossuet and Musichetta could not keep a straight face.

"Oh my, that really does make me look pathetic," Joly said, having a moment of self-awareness. "So if we ever get on bad terms and I move out, this pussycat Jojo will come with me because apparently I am so _pussy_ -llanimous."

**Author's Note:**

> Hydrophobia was an old term for rabies.


End file.
